From a UK magazine---April 1999
 
We are accustomed to the constant re-interpretation of Shakespear; that neverending process which sees plays discovered anwe by each fresh troupe of actors and directors. We are still less used to thesame thing applying to other writers, even those of the stature of Charles Dickens. That, however, is changing.
 
Following the BBC's award-winning success with Our Mutual Friend last year, three Dicken's best known and most accessible novels will arrive on our screens over thee next year. All three have been filmed and televised before, producing an assortment of adaptations that to varying extents have become treasured cultural landmarks in their own right.
 
Now they are being reworked again - Alan Bleasdale, writer of Boys from the Black Stuff is working on what one can only presume will be a serious antidote to Oliver! (Lionel Bart's version of Oliver Twist) for ITV, while John Sullivan, creator of Only Fools and Horses, is reworking that great Sunday afternoon favourite, David Copperfield, for the BBC.
But first off, on Monday and Tuesday this week on BBC2, comes a new version of Great Expectations from the pen and scalpel of Tony Marchant, the man who gave us all those takes on contemporary London life in the epic, Holding On and now, along with a lot of estuary marsh, brings us Charlotte Rampling as Miss Havisham.
 
There is a school of thought which says that all three men would be better employed writing something original rather than adapting some of the best-known novels in Enlish literature. There is also a more cynical thought that the involvement of such well established writing talent has little to do with creativity and everything to do with winning over doubtful commissioning editors, who are always happier signing the cheques when they see a few famous names attached. There ia a certain merit in both these reservations.
 
But having seen Marchant's three-hour adaptation of one of my favorite novels, I urge you to put such reservations aside and approach with an open mind. It will also help if you are prepared to give the opening instalment a good 10 minutes to get going - Bernard Hill's Magwitch is so ravenous that his opening graveyard scenes with Pip are rendered all but incomprehensible. Never advance the plot with your mouth full, as my mother still tells me.
 
Dickens purists will no doubt find much to object to, but they will be missing the point. This is not the definitive Dickens (that was the book), this is simply another reworking with its own successed and failures. Among the former are Rampling as a slightly decrepit but still disconcertingly delectable Miss Havisham and two cracking performances from Gabriel Thomson and Gemma Gregory as the young Pip and Estella. Ioan Gruffudd and Justine Waddell continue the good work after a few symbolic hammer blows on Joe's anvil have got growing-up out of the way.
 
Among its modest failures are the opening 10 minuts, an awful lot of rowing (the sort you do in boats) in part two and far too much all obscuring natural darkness, As I've mentioned before, this is fine when seen in a blacked-out cinema (the venue all directors of photography aspire to) but hopeless on a domestic television with all its attendant glare and reflection.
 
But overall, when you can see what is going on, this new version ia a captivating success. Marchant's pared-down script delivers the story and the bigger points (about class, about manipulation, about people not being what they initially seem) that he and Dickens wanted to make and an outstanding supporting cast deliver some terrific performances. But look, if you don't like it, don't worry, I'm sure there will be another Great Expectations along in about a decade's time.